Given the ubiquitous nature of mobile electronic devices such as, for example, mobile communication devices like cellular telephones, many people are utilizing an expanding variety of applications that are executable at such mobile electronic devices. For example, applications for providing services related to communications, media sharing, information gathering, education, gaming, and many others have been developed, fueled by consumer demand. One particular area in which consumer demand has triggered an expansion of services relates to the establishment of communication sessions during which, for example, Internet telephone calls, multimedia distribution, multimedia conferences and the like may be established. Examples of protocols which may be used in such communication sessions may include, for example, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Motorola Push-to-Talk (M-PTT) protocol, and the like.
SIP is an application-layer control (signaling) protocol for creating, modifying, and terminating sessions with one or more participants. SIP is widely used as a signaling protocol for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and media sharing applications. SIP is addressing neutral, with addresses expressed as a uniform resource locator (URL), a uniform resource identifier (URI), a telephone number, an email like address, or the like. SIP is generally considered to be lightweight since it has a limited number of methods to reduce complexity, and transport-independent since it can be used with User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Transport Control Protocol (TCP) and other transport protocols.
M-PTT is an example of a SIP based protocol which may be employed for session based communications such as push-to-talk (PTT) communications. M-PTT signaling messages are text based messages which may be used to set up calls from one network node (e.g., a mobile terminal such as a mobile phone) to another. For example, M-PTT or another session based protocol may be used to set up a PTT call between two network nodes that have subscribed to a PTT service.
In order to enable establishment of, for example, a PTT call, an initiating node in a communication system such as a code division multiple access (CDMA) system may send a paging message over a paging channel to alert a receiving node that the initiating node is attempting to establish the PTT call. Paging channels are typically divided into time slots during which page messages and overhead information updates may be received. In order to conserve battery resources, nodes embodied as mobile terminals may be scheduled to monitor the paging channel at certain time slots. Accordingly, during time slots when a node is not monitoring the paging channel, the node may be in a sleep mode where the transceivers of the node are turned off in order to conserve battery power. The length of time during which the node stays in the sleep mode may be referred to as a sleep period or slot cycle.
Since monitoring the paging channel for a longer period of time may result in a faster loss of battery power, there is often a tradeoff between response time, which could be reduced by decreasing the sleep period, and resource conservation, which could be improved by increasing the sleep period. Slot cycle index (SCI) is a system parameter which may be used to configure the duration of the sleep period. The SCI is typically a fixed value that is set at the time of manufacture. Accordingly, if a particular mobile terminal provides a user with a response time that is perceived to be too slow, or if the particular mobile terminal is perceived to lose battery charge too rapidly based on the factory set SCI, the user would often have no choice but to obtain a new mobile terminal to remedy the situation.
Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide a mechanism by which to address at least some of the problems described above.